the body means not annihilation. _Not one feature of the face_ will be
annihilated." Having established the perpetuity of the body by this
close and clear analogy, namely, that _as_ there is a total change in the
particles of flax in consequence of which they no longer appear as flax,
_so_ there will _not_ be a total change in the particles of the human
body, but they will reappear as the human body, he does not seem to
consider that the perpetuity of the body involves the perpetuity of the
soul, but requires separate evidence for this, and finds such evidence by
begging the very question at issue--namely, by asserting that the text of
the Scripture implies "the perpetuity of the punishment of the lost, and
the consciousness of the punishment which they endure." Yet it is
drivelling like this which is listened to and lauded as eloquence by
hundreds, and which a Doctor of Divinity can believe that he has his
"reward as a saint" for preaching and publishing!

One more characteristic of Dr. Cumming's writings, and we have done.
This is the _perverted moral judgment_ that everywhere reigns in them.
Not that this perversion is peculiar to Dr. Cumming: it belongs to the
dogmatic system which he shares with all evangelical believers. But the
abstract tendencies of systems are represented in very different degrees,
according to the different characters of those who embrace them; just as
the same food tells differently on different constitutions: and there are
certain qualities in Dr. Cumming that cause the perversion of which we
speak to exhibit itself with peculiar prominence in his teaching. A
single extract will enable us to explain what we mean:

"The 'thoughts' are evil. If it were possible for human eye to
discern and to detect the thoughts that flutter around the heart of
an unregenerate man--to mark their hue and their multitude, it would
be found that they are indeed 'evil.' We speak not of the thief, and
the murderer, and the adulterer, and such like, whose crimes draw
down the cognizance of earthly tribunals, and whose unenviable
character it is to take the lead in the paths of sin; but we refer to
the men who are marked out by their practice of many of the seemliest
moralities of life--by the exercise of the kindliest affections, and
the interchange of the sweetest reciprocities--and of these men, if
unrenewed and unchanged, we pronounce that their thoughts are evil.